Star Wars- one of the top selling, top money-making movies of all time. Star Wars- a simple tale of good versus evil; a tale in which good triumphs in the end- a great story in which there’s no middle ground and everything is portrayed in terms of black and white, dark or light. So when I say “Star Wars”, what’s the first image that pops into your mind? Do you see fascinating characters like Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker; Princess Leah or Han Solo? Do you see lovable aliens like Wookies, Jawas, or Ewoks? Do you see futuristic technology like the “Millennium Falcon” or various colored light sabers? George Lucas and Hollywood make his all seem so exciting and glamorous and harmless. Unfortunately, it’s also unrealistic. The Star Wars that we could be facing some day in the future will be nothing like what we have just been envisioning. Our Star Wars will be dark and deadly. For decades, the leaders of our world have been working on the militarization of space. This will only have destructive consequences. Nothing fascinating or inspiring, glamorous or harmless will result. What we have to lose far outweighs anything we might gain from placing weapons in space. The most logical way to ensure the continued wellbeing of our planet and the human race is to de-militarize what is currently in space and to prevent any future attempt by any nation- including our own- to place weapons of any kind, anywhere in space.
First, the militarization of space will result in the destruction of all the scientific gains from space that we have made in the past fifty years. But what have we gained in peaceful scientific exploration? Well, some of the most important devices that we have today were developed, put into, and stay in space because of peace there: satellites. They aid our weather prediction and allow cell phones and GPS to work. Just this one major thing with these three branches has saved countless human lives. If we were to allow weapons in space, satellites could and would be damaged, causing cell phones, weather prediction centers and GPS systems to immediately stop working. This would cause global chaos and panic, and undoubtedly put lives in danger.
Plus, if something goes wrong, and there’s an accident, say, one nation destroys another nation’s property, there are going to be some bad feelings. We do not want increased global hostility. It could lead to negative reactions, and to the consequences discussed earlier. Weapons in space have also caused grief in the money aspect. To this date, we have spent over $150 billion for space weapons, and so far, there has been very little success. Nearly all that has been attempted to be made has failed. They simply don’t work. So why are we still trying? We’re just losing money.
In 1958, Thomas White, the chief commander of the Air Force said this: “The United States must win and maintain the capability to control space in order to assure the progress and preemince of free nations. If liberty and freedom are to remain in the world, the U.S. and its allies must be in a position to control space.” This along with “If we don’t do it, someone else will,” is the rationale that leaders of this nation have been using for the past 60 years to qualify weapons in space. The first problem I see with this statement is that if we do go ahead and develop space weapons, the surely other countries will develop them as well. If the United States does something, it somewhat qualifies as a green light for other nations to go ahead and follow. But if we don’t do it, then undoubtedly other nations are going to relax more and sit back.
In 2001, the United Nations released a resolution to prevent an arms race in outer space. It stated that, “The exploration and use of outer space… shall be used for peaceful purposes and shall be carried out for the benefit of all countries.” Every single one of the 163 attendees signed this resolution. The three nations that were absent (the United States, Israel, and the Federated States of Micronesia) did not. One hundred sixty-three to three. An obvious majority agrees on the issue. And so I ask, what gives these three nations (including our own) the right to go against- and potentially put the well being of at risk- the rest of the world? The simple answer: we don’t.
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